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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23492407">Double Jeopardy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie'>distractionpie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>EreJean Week 2020 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Journalism, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Blogging, Buzzfeed Bashing, Identity Porn, M/M, Secret Identity, Trust Issues, past breakup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:34:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,781</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23492407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren has his life pretty well figured out. By day, he runs his blog, investigating and exposing all of his city's shadiest secrets. By night, he's Titan, using his super-strength and near invulnerability to take down those too powerful or dangerous to handle under his normal identity. He's even got help, in the form of Dark Stallion, Maria city's other resident masked hero and Eren's increasingly frequent team-up partner.</p><p>But when his latest investigation keeps throwing Jean Kirschtein (hipster asshole, wannabe serious journalist, Eren's ex-boyfriend) into his path, Eren finds tensions ramping up in all parts of his life and his investigation getting messy in both identities...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jean Kirstein/Eren Yeager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>EreJean Week 2020 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681744</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I love this prompt but in a oh shit as soon as I started making notes for it I had a feeling it was gonna spiral out of control into chapter fic way and I was right. So I'm posting the chapters I have finished/single-proofed on the relevant day and I'll do what I can to bang out the rest soonish ¯\_(ツ)_/¯</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rain falls.</p>
<p>Rain falls on Eren.</p>
<p>Technically, he’s under shelter but there are cracks in the panel above him and through those cracks the rain seeps in thick heavy droplets.</p>
<p>Normally, investigative work is his favourite part of the job. Both jobs, really.</p>
<p>Today he could really do without it.</p>
<p>Was it too much to ask for evil to be a little more obvious? </p>
<p>Instead, all he has is a vague lead about off-the-record building work, and a hunch there’s something more to it than tax avoidance. But trusting his gut has rarely steered Eren wrong, and he’s always wanted to take down an evil mega-corporation.</p>
<p>And there’s no doubt that the National Mutant Establishment are evil. Or at least, sketchy as fuck in a way that needs to be exposed. Eren is in the business of exposing.</p>
<p>But not in a pervert way.</p>
<p>Nobody believes him yet, about the whole NME being evil thing not the pervert thing (he hopes), but any company claiming to be that good and that helpful is hiding something, and he’s sure he’ll uncover what it is along with proof eventually. People aspire to goodness, but companies? Companies are always corrupt.</p>
<p>And for fucks’ sake, they claim to be about putting infrastructure and support in place but keep calling supers ‘mutants’ which is grossly dehumanising and, although Eren isn’t exactly friends with any real life supers, the comments he gets on his blog suggest the general community agree with him.</p>
<p>Superheroes had been thriving for over 50 years, doing just fine on their own ever since powers had begun to crop up in society. If there were a need for organisation, people would have organised themselves long ago. A bunch of non-powered businesspeople getting together and naming themselves a support network: it seems like a gateway to exploitation at best and at worse…</p>
<p>Well, Eren’s not sure, but that’s what he’s here to find out.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, NME might be bad, but they’re good at what they do. And Eren gut instincts can only get him so far unless NME slip up and give him some proof to back those feelings up.</p>
<p>Their buildings are all locked down tight, bullet-proof security that they claim is to protect the supers they’re working with from radical humanists. It’s not an implausible claim, very few people who manifested powers did so in a way that gave them more abilities than regular humans rather than just different ones, but there are always those who resent variation. Eren had always hated them, but that they’re indirectly helping NME to get up to… whatever they’re up, leaving him with no recourse but to keep an ear to the ground for rumours and wait for them to slip up is infuriating.</p>
<p>But they will slip up.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The public face of NME is even more tightly controlled than their headquarters. Ever since they started bidding for government backing their public relations teams have been working overtime and it takes Eren some serious calling in of favours to get into their latest press conference, since they’ve started insisting on ‘real’ media credentials, but he wants his dirt direct from the source not via articles from reporters NME have picked to invite and who are probably getting kickbacks to spin things in their favour.</p>
<p>The briefing itself is bland as fuck, there’s no actual information in their statements just a lot of corporate platitudes that turn out to be working their way to a request for support in publicising their bid for clearer legal classification of where the line was between superhuman and unusual-but-not-super abilities. Which meant Eren would have to get a couple of articles out about how arbitrarily drawn lines only divided their community further and the slippery slope to government registration. It’s another check-mark against NME but nothing he hadn’t expected. It’s at the meet and greet afterwards where things get interesting, when he sees a familiar face.</p>
<p>Well, truth be told, he sees a familiar pair of skinny jeans.</p>
<p>What can he say? He’d spent three mostly good years learning every inch of that body, and though it has been nearly two more since he’s seen Jean and the jeans don’t quite fit right anymore he can still remember the way those legs felt wrapped around his waist. Of course, he can also remember the last look he’d got at that ass, when Jean had walked out of his life, saying that if Eren wasn’t prepared for their relationship to happen on Jean’s terms then Jean wasn’t prepared to have a relationship at all.</p>
<p>He looks like even more of a hipster than ever, he’s let the undercut get shaggy on top and he’s walking around the room with a dictaphone in hand as if his phone wasn’t more than capable of audio recordings.</p>
<p>Honestly, Eren wouldn’t have been surprised if the camera he wore around his neck was film instead of sensible digital.</p>
<p>It was truly amazing how much less charming that seemed now his opinions weren’t being influenced by the prospect of getting laid.</p>
<p> It’s hard to believe now how deeply gone he was back then, in those honeymoon-phase days when Jean’s scowling just make Eren want to kiss him until he smiled and his competitive need to be right about everything had been cute instead of condescending. Once Eren would have assumed the schmoozing way Jean is talking to some suited investor type was him playing the game, trying to get the scoop to laugh about with Eren later, but sometime around junior year Jean had suddenly started playing it straight and it had been all downhill from there.</p>
<p>Bickering had been fuel for passion for a while, but then it had rolled on forward into screaming rows and a breakup that had resulted in a schism in their friends and made graduating a mercy in that it allowed them to get as far away from each other as possible.</p>
<p>But now Jean is here.</p>
<p>They’d had enough friends refused to take sides in the split that Eren had known from social media that Jean had move here instead of commuting like he had in college, but Maria city was a big place and he’d been willing to believe this piece of his past could be left behind.</p>
<p>But since it’s not, Eren isn’t going to run. Tucking his own phone into his pocket, he starts weaving through the crowds in Jean’s direction. He’s too slow to cut into the conversation he’s having with a woman in the world’s blandest business suit, but not too late to catch Jean as he browses the table of cheap canapes.</p>
<p>At the sight of Eren, Jean’s eyes narrow, he shifts his weight back, but then, horror of all horrors, the corners of his mouth curl upward as he flashes Eren a tight smile.</p>
<p>Fake, fake, fake, and it makes Eren want to hurl. He’d much rather have Jean sincerely shouting in his face than that shallow smile, but at least he’s still a little himself because the first thing out of his mouth is a strained, snide, “Oh, Eren! You finally got a real job?”</p>
<p>Eren grimaces. The words are a dig, but not in the way Jean probably means them to be. No, he hasn’t sold out, and Jean ought to know him better than that. Of course, only recognised press are allowed in here, so perhaps Jean isn’t fully to blame for the assumption and if Eren tells the truth, Jean might call security, but he probably wouldn’t want to deal with the embarrassment of admitting to knowing Eren. “No, I’m still independent,” he assures Jean, “But I have my methods.”</p>
<p>“Independent meaning unemployed,” Jean concludes, even though ad revenue and reader donations are a totally legitimate source of income, although admittedly they probably wouldn’t be enough to live on if Eren also wasn’t making money from his other gig. “Are you still blogging from the same shitty laptop you’ve had since high school?”</p>
<p>“Oh, are you so high and mighty now?” Eren challenges, squinting at Jean’s press pass. “Finally kissed enough ass to get on the ladder at…”</p>
<p>The blocky red font had looked familiar from a distance, but it still takes him a moment to recognise…</p>
<p>“…<em>Buzzfeed</em>?”</p>
<p>Jean at least has the grace to look embarrassed.</p>
<p>Oh, this is too absurd. “You’re putting down my credentials, when you work for the bottom feeders of the internet?”</p>
<p>"What credentials? You’re a blogger," Jean sneers. “You must have lied to get in here.”</p>
<p>"Oh, what, as opposed to the beacon of journalistic integrity that is Buzzfeed?"</p>
<p>"At least I'm actually employed and making industry connections."</p>
<p>"With people who publish listicles."</p>
<p>“Key word: publish. I have a readership.”</p>
<p>“So do I,” Eren protests. And his readership cares what he has to say, whereas if Jean is writing for Buzzfeed the best he’s likely to be getting is a casual glance from bored college students looking for something to distract them in lectures.</p>
<p>“Mikasa and Armin don’t count!”</p>
<p>Eren rolls his eyes, even in its early days it hadn’t been just his friends reading his blog. Once, Jean had read it, albeit even when their relationship had been good he’d liked to pick at Eren’s conclusions and cast aspersions on his sources but it had challenged him to do better. The face Jean’s making now, like he might have always thought it beneath him and was just humouring Eren back then, hits harder than it ought. What should Eren care for Jean’s judgement?</p>
<p>“Your mother reads my blog,” Eren reminds him, and she comments. Mostly because she picked up the habit when she could use Eren as a source of updates on Jean since he was a terrible son, but she’s kept commenting long after the breakup even though there’s no way Jean hasn’t told her not to.</p>
<p>“Oh, well done,” Jean says. “You’ve attained the same level of credibility as the horoscopes in the Trost Advertiser.”</p>
<p>“Don’t talk shit about your own mom,” Eren complains. The ungratefulness is one thing he’s never liked about Jean and it’s a shame to see age hasn’t fixed that.</p>
<p>“Don’t bring her into the conversation then!”</p>
<p>“You’re supposed to defend her or something,” Eren clarifies.</p>
<p>“So you admit accusations of reading you blog are something to be defended from.”</p>
<p>Damn. He’s good. And it’s all too easy to fall back into rhythm with him, there’s an edge their banter didn’t have before, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been three years since they were together. This encounter is dragging him back more than expected.</p>
<p>“So what interest does Buzzfeed have here?” Eren deflects. There’re no cat videos or celebrity Instagram posts so it seems pretty out of their remit.</p>
<p>“NME are poised to provide a long overdue public service.” Jean parrots the presentation they just watched almost word for word and like he’s completely forgotten how to use the brains he has. “They’re only going to grow more widespread, it makes sense to be on the front line of connecting them to future service users.”</p>
<p>Urgh. It’s just cruel given that he knows buzzwords give Eren hives. Anyway, “Really? You think this is okay? None of our city’s superheroes have asked for NME to set up shop and start butting their noses in!”</p>
<p>“Our city isn’t the whole world,” Jean dismisses. “And not everybody with abilities wants to be a hero. Just because The Titan—”</p>
<p>“It’s just Titan,” Eren corrects.</p>
<p>Jean rolls his eyes, head tipping upwards in the obnoxious way of his as if he were pleading with a god he didn’t believe him to spare him from Eren just trying to be helpful. “Oh, did your blog get an exclusive interview or something?”</p>
<p>Eren had better than that, but he could hardly explain it to Jean.</p>
<p>“He’s a person, and it’s a name not a title, using the article is grammatically abnormal,” Eren points out. They’d gone to the same damn college, and Jean knows better.</p>
<p>“Whatever,” Jean says. “Just because one or two high profile supers are doing well for themselves, doesn’t mean there isn’t a demand for help at other levels.”</p>
<p>“Then let it be by supers,” Eren says. “People sticking up for their own, not companies trying to seize control.”</p>
<p>“If that was going to happen, it would have by now. The community is too small and disparate to build the infrastructure it needs, NME can offer resources.”</p>
<p>“And what do they want in return?”</p>
<p>“They’re a charity.”</p>
<p>“A privately funded one.” Eren had already dug up that much about them. “Which begs a lot of questions about their donors’ motivations.”</p>
<p>“Does it?” Jean asks. “Or are you just looking for conspiracies to get people on your blog? What are the ad rates for that shit anyway?”</p>
<p>“I’m pretty sure clickbait is your division now,” Eren reminds him. “And journalism is about the truth, not revenue.” It was stupid coming over here. He doesn’t know what he thought he was going to achieve by talking to Jean, but all he’s got is grim reminders of why it hadn’t worked between them and an awful lot of questions about why he’d thought it was a good idea to ever be with him.</p>
<p>Jean just rolls his eyes, but Eren’s not going to accept acting like he’s above it all as a cover for being unable to engage. He’s got what he wanted from this event, more evidence that NME has a strong PR machine but is hiding any details of what they’re actually doing, staying to fight with Jean just risks jeopardising the fake credentials that got him in here. Back when they were dating, he might have kept the fight going, but Eren’s got bigger battles now.</p>
<p>He walks away.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In a lot of ways, Eren thinks the work he does as an investigator is where the real heroism happens. The information he shares allows the public to look after their own best interests and the information he keeps to himself is what enables him to do the other half of his job.</p><p>Still, there’s always a relief to getting out in uniform as Titan and knowing that as the city’s super saviour he doesn’t have to hold back.</p><p>Generally he aims for a few nights a week on patrol, just to keep the people reassured that Titan was there for them, while avoiding the trap of becoming one of those heroes with a police scanner tuned in 24/7 keeping an ear out for situations that might require his assistance. It was too easy to get burned out that way as he’d others do. A select list of people had his number for when situations arose where Titan could be of immediate assistance but Eren, and by extension his superhero alter-ego, is an investigator and so his focus is always on digging up the bigger picture stuff so that he can stop problems before they happen.</p><p>But sometimes letting himself stick to the simpler stuff was a relief. It was so much easier to use super strength to help people out of car crashes or get cats out of trees. It was almost tempting to indulge in it more often, but petty crooks and random acts of violence where by-products of society and human nature, neither of which he could change. It was up against organised crime and supervisions that he could really make a difference and so that was where he needed to focus his attentions, but after a day of looking into NME he was ready for a night of relative relaxation dealing with less complicated problems.</p><p>Truthfully, a lot of what he did as Titan was all about being a very visible heroes in the street.</p><p>He’d watching from the roof of the Frieda Reiss Memorial Paediatric Hospital, which offered great sight lines over the city and was strong enough that there were no concerns about his weight in this form and, most importantly delighted the kids every time they got to see him climb past their windows to get there.</p><p>There’s nothing much to do tonight, Maria is a quiet city, it has its share of petty crime but it’s rare that Titanic intervention is the appropriate level of force for that. He’s watching the lights rush by below him, thousands of tiny specks of life to protect, when there’s a whoosh of displaced air as a shadow falls into place beside him.</p><p>Eren nods in greeting to The Dark Stallion, this region’s other resident superhero. He used to operate further up north, focused on the city of Trost, but there was a whole team of up-and-coming young heroes there now and his operations had started drifting southward until eventually he’d become a regular in Maria city.</p><p>Some heroes might get territorial, but Eren isn’t going to complain about somebody else picking up some of the work. In his early days of superhero-ing he’d been all about the glory, but trying to balance a normal life at college with commuting home to Shiganshina and being a hero there had taught him a lot of lessons in not spreading himself too thin, and, now he was trying to juggle paying rent and not being a social recluse while also holding onto his double life, it was nice to know that if he ever slept through a call Maria city wouldn’t be completely unguarded. Anyway, there are some responsibilities his powers aren’t suited too, and it’s so much easier to have Dark fly in to cover the gaps than struggle to do detailed work with fingers the size of arms.</p><p>So Dark is somebody Eren appreciates, but tonight he’s tense, still hovering rather than settling on the roof beside him, it gives the impression that Dark might fly away at any moment.</p><p>Talking is kind of uncomfortable in this form, but for Dark Eren can deal with the awkwardness of trying to control his abnormally shaped jaw and keep his volume reasonable.</p><p>“Everything okay?” he asks, holding out a hand.</p><p>“Oh, shit, yeah, nothing is going off,” Dark says, letting himself drop onto Eren’s outstretched palm. “Urgh, I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have come out tonight. Anything on your end?”</p><p>“All quiet,” Eren assures him. “If you don’t want to be out, I’m pretty sure I can cover everything.”</p><p>“Ah, thanks, but… I dunno. It’s been a… weird week,” Dark complains. “I thought getting out here might clear my head a little. But there’s no action so I’m just flying around <em>thinking</em>.”</p><p>“Anything I can help with?” Eren offers. Their cooperation tends to be a spur of the moment thing, they’ve never planned together, but if Dark needs help, he’s just as much a part of the city Eren has pledged to defend as any non-powered person.</p><p>“No, it’s not saving the city weird. Mostly personal.”</p><p>Hmmm… that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t something Eren could help with, but for all the time he spends working with Dark, Eren knows next to nothing about the man behind the mask. Like most in their business, anonymity is part of his uniform, part of both their lives, and to even mention having personal issues is a surprising level of openness that it feels uncomfortable to pry into.</p><p>“Plus, there was an article about me in the Trost Advertiser with a bunch of fake quotes,” Dark continued. “Seven things the Stallion says save his day. I should fucking sue.”</p><p>Using him in advertising? That is obnoxious, and a hideous abuse of the fact he can’t sue without compromising his identity. Though Eren guesses Dark’s annoyance stems just as much from them using that hated nickname. Eren had used his internet mastery to seed the name Titan into forum conversations and comment sections since his own first appearance and let it take off, but Dark’s name had been coined by the tabloids and he’d always been less than happy with it, which was why Eren stuck to the abbreviated version. Although… “Let's be honest you've had a grudge against them since they gave your that terrible name, but I’ve been thinking, and if you’d prefer Kitten I’m sure we could find some way to get people to start using that that. I could shout you by it when there are reporters around, I’m sure they’d get on board.”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>“Well, y’know, you’re basically wearing a cat-suit right. And don’t get me wrong, you work it. Be even better if you took that big coat off though. But if you’re going for a theme I can support that.”</p><p>The low noise of frustration Dark makes has Eren laughing, making a note to reuse that gag since it clearly got to him, and although Eren can’t know the man behind the mask, he always savours getting under his skin.</p><p>Dark is attractive, Eren doesn’t need to see his face to appreciate a tight body and a sharp mind, and it’s fun to tease but that’s as much as will ever happen between them, flirting but not in any serious way, firstly because breakups with other supers are a first rate way to end up in a really messy nemesis situation and secondly because Dark is even more devoted to concealing his identity than Eren and while there is fun to be had fully clothed Eren is a visual guy at heart and he knows that if he went there he wouldn’t be satisfied until he got a real look at what Dark was hiding under his uniform, which he’s pretty sure Dark would never agree to even if Eren were prepared to reciprocate, which he isn’t. Anyway, their working relationship is too good to risk.</p><p>Before he can continue their banter, Dark cocks his head, at the same moment Eren hears his ear-piece crackle to life and Armin calls in, “There’s a tower block fire on the corner of 15th and Fritz Avenue. Evacuating safely for now, but they could use some support waiting if the upper floors get cut off.”</p><p>From the direction Dark’s head turns, Eren suspects whatever source he uses is relaying the same information. It’s a job the firefighter should be able to handle alone, and it certainly doesn’t require two superheroes, but it’s a quiet night and Dark has already admitted he could use the distraction.</p><p>“Race you?” Eren says. He rarely wins, the caution he has to move with in this form to avoid property damage more than cancels out the advantages of a much-lengthened stride, but it’s never stopped him trying.</p><p>Dark’s hood cast shadows which made it hard to pick out the lines of his face (Eren had always suspected Dark had some additional powers he was hiding, because there was just no way his hood wouldn’t slip off while flying and fighting), and the mask makes his eyes almost impossible to pick out, but Eren still catches the bright white flash of his grin at the challenge, the slight pressure shift of his boots pushing off Eren’s palm the only acceptance he gets before Dark is racing off into the night. His coat billows out behind him, almost as cool as a cape. Eren loves his titan form, but the sheer scale of him doesn’t leave a lot of opportunities for costuming — he’s just grateful that Armin helped him to find a source of stretchy pants that could accommodate him because even though he has a lot less to cover while shifted there had been something supremely awkward about seeing his own bare ass on the front of the morning papers back in the early days of trying to use his powers for good.</p><p>His own powers are an amazing gift, but he can’t lie, he is more than a little jealous that Dark gets to <em>fly</em>. He’d asked once or twice if Dark could take him flying, just to see what it felt like, but the other superhero always brushed him off and claimed he was too big and, although it was tempting, Eren had grudgingly accepted that was too big a risk to reveal himself to Dark in his unshifted form, even in disguise, just to go for a flight. Fuck if it the temptation didn’t torture him though.</p><p>There’s no time to dwell on that now though, he has a race to win.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“That was a nice job with the fire,” Armin congratulates.</p><p>Eren grins. Nights like this made it all worthwhile, not a single death and minimal injuries, plus dozens of first responders reminded that they had not one but two supers ready and waiting to help them keep the city safe. The only low point had been a little worry about Dark zooming in and out of the building with all the smoke around, but when he’d voiced it Dark had given a husky laugh and hung around chatting far longer than usual in order to convince Eren he was well. “Yeah, getting to do some hands on good almost makes up for having to go to that shitty NME event.”</p><p>“You didn’t have to go,” Mikasa chides him.</p><p>“And risk them sneaking some nefarious new development by me?”</p><p>“Was there any new information?”</p><p>Eren sighs. “No, it was just the usual PR claptrap.” Just like she’d told him it would be. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth a try. “I could have just read the write-ups, at least then there might have been some interesting commentary. Although, even that might be optimistic given that... wellm you’ll never guess who was there covering it for Buzzfeed.”</p><p>“Who?” Mikasa says, in a tone that made clear that she hadn’t the least interest and was barely condescending to humouring him.</p><p>“Jean Kirschtein!”</p><p>“Do we know any other Jean’s?”</p><p>Armin has never had a good sense of drama, but Eren presses on. “He had a press pass and his stupid camera and everything, his jacket made it hard to tell, but I’m pretty sure he was even wearing suspenders like the pretentious hipster prick he is. But can you believe it?”</p><p>“Well, he lives here, and he’s working as a journalist. And NME are working hard to be the biggest news in the city right now, he’s chasing the story so of course he’d be there.”</p><p>Eren had been sure that he’d got Armin in the breakup, after all, they’d been friends since long before knowing Jean. Clearly, he’s been mistaken.</p><p>“You knew?”</p><p>His feelings must be writ clear in his tone, because Armin pulls a face. “It’s not like we hang out,” he says, “But there’s overlap, we have some shared contacts. I’ve run into him a few times.”</p><p>“And you didn’t…” Eren trails off. He’d been about to admonish Armin for not warning him, but what warning could he have given? Eren had known Jean was in the city and if Armin and Jean weren’t close there was no reason for Armin to know Jean would be at that particular press conference.</p><p>“Whatever,” he says. “He’s working for <em>Buzzfeed</em> now — how the mighty have fallen, huh?”</p><p>Shrugging, Armin says, “It’s hard to break into journalism these days. Not everyone has your advantages when it comes to getting scoops.”</p><p>Whatever. Sure, using his titan identity nets him insider perspectives for crime coverage and the often secretive conflicts between superheroes and the villains, but by the time he'd finished anonymising everything he knew so it wasn't obvious he was his own source Eren was probably putting in more work than any other news provider in the city.</p><p>But given how much of the research behind his investigations was Armin’s and all of that had to go uncredited in his reporting, Eren decided not to dispute it. Armin could play nice if he wanted, but Eren would still know just what a disgrace Jean had become. Still he can’t let Jean distract him from the very real dangers of whatever schemes NME are up to.</p><p>“So the press conference was a bust, but did you have any luck with the bugs?”</p><p>“I’ve done what I can,” Armin said, “But their security is too good. I’ve got emails but there’s nothing that doesn’t match their public image in there, the only lead is references to additional data on a closed internal network, and unless you can get somebody into NME I can’t help you with that.”</p><p>So they’re stuck at square zero, because NME is locked down tighter than most government facilities. It’s another hint that they’ve something to hide, but it sure makes it hard to prove.</p><p>But Eren is going to prove it. He just… needs a new plan.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>filler/set-up chapter woooooo.....?<br/>the situation with this fic is that i know exactly where i want it to go, i'm just having a little difficultly getting the ball rolling in the correct direction</p>
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